Game of Thrones set visit reveals big things ahead for Jon Snow

The Iron Throne sits undisturbed most days. Encased, as it were, in Belfast’s Titanic Studios, the Throne’s most frequent inhabitants are cool breezes, sweeping through the open air set, chilling prop columns and local workers without prejudice. For the actors who populate the myriad central characters on HBO’s Game of Thrones this abstinentia is likely for the best. Though most have ambition to occupy the Throne’s sword-accented seat, statistically speaking it’s likely they will be exercised of their mortal coil long before experiencing the earthly delights that come with ruling the Seven Kingdoms.

A half hour’s drive up the Irish coastline, a former quarry houses a fabricated castle. Standing just over 10 feet away, Kit Harington stares at the structure anxiously. Oddly, considering the show’s penchant for relieving central characters of their heads, the 27-year-old British actor’s concern is not for the safety of his Game of Thrones character — the kind-hearted bastard Jon Snow — nor for his brothers in the order of The Night’s Watch, the Seven Kingdom’s miscreant defense against wildling humans and supernatural ice zombies. Rather, Harington’s unease stems from a worrisome mental lapse that has put both his safety and the day’s tight production schedule in grave jeopardy: He’s left his glasses in his hotel room. “I’m doing a sword fight,” Harington explains between worried cigarette puffs (an act jarring enough to break any Game of Thrones fan’s suspended disbelief), “and I’m completely blind.”

It’s an unseasonably sunny mid-October day in Northern Ireland, and Harington, in full Night’s Watch regalia, is in the middle of shooting the fourth of 10 episodes that comprise Game of Thrones’ fourth season. In the show, as in A Song of Ice and Fire, the George R.R. Martin book series it’s based on, the military outpost of Castle Black lies along The Wall — a gargantuan ice barrier built at the northern peak of civilized society. On Earth, however, the Watch’s HQ is situated in Magheramorne, about 40 kilometers away from Harington’s corrective lenses.

Kit Harington as Jon Snow

Harington spent little time on the Castle Black set over the past year as his character perused his own Bond-like covert mission beyond The Wall — losing his virginity, his heart and ultimately nearly his life to a fiery wildling named Ygritte. Between seasons, Harington spent his time in Toronto shooting Pompeii, his first leading film role. As fate would have it, the stay coincided with Game of Thrones‘ most disturbing, blood-churning and infamous moment to date: The Red Wedding.

“I was alone in Toronto, on my own,” he recalls of taking in the butchering of his TV brother and step-mother. “It was a weird feeling. I was upset because [actors] Michelle [Fairley] and Richard [Madden] were going, but at the end I literally jumped up and wept for joy because I personally thought they nailed it.”

“It was a mixed bag.”

With Snow’s fourth-season return to Castle Black, Harington admits to feeling what he refers to as “a weird sort of déjà vu.”

“I’m wearing the training gear and it’s very similar to doing the training yard fight we did in Season 1,” he explains.

This isn’t the first time Harington and the rest of his castmates have felt déjà vu. After a disastrous initial run, HBO asked showrunners David Benioff and D.B Weiss to reshoot the Game of Thrones pilot, demanding a “dirtier” aesthetic. By the start of the fourth season, Game of Thrones’ mammoth production stretches across the world, filming in Croatia, Iceland, Morocco and multiple Northern Ireland locations, and is HBO’s most successful (and costly) show, with 5.4 million viewers watching the season three finale on the paid cable network in the U.S. and a record 5.9 million illegally downloading the episode, according to digital piracy news site TorrentFreak.

Kit Harington as Jon Snow

During a break from filming, Game of Thrones’ executive story editor, co-producer and writer Bryan Cogman considers the show’s achievements: “I didn’t personally know if a show that was this complicated, strange and genre-bending would find a huge audience. It’s been very gratifying.”

Cogman, like the rest of the cast, credits much of Game of Thrones’ accomplishments to Martin, who not only serves as a producer but also writes one episode per season. Though much has been made of the ample nudity and gory violence, it’s the hirsute author’s ability to subtly paint in shades of moral grays, Cogman argues, that elevates the show.

“The genius of George is that he makes you emphasize with a man who in the first 80 pages of your book pushes a child out the window,” he says, citing the improbably sympathetic story arc of hobbled “kingslayer” Jaime Lannister. Cogman’s job, then, is to take Martin’s rapidly escalating vision and reshape it as palatable television (a format that Martin rejected as being too small for his pre-Thrones scripts). “We’re always trying to top ourselves in every way,” Cogman explains. “We really want this to be the greatest show ever seen.”

Logically, then, Cogman claims Season 4 is “without question our biggest in terms of spectacle. We’re not cutting back on anything: sex, violence or profanity.” Carefully, he adds, “This is a big season for Jon Snow.”

Moments later, Snow himself returns, glasses in hand thanks to a hustled production assistant, and Cogman ceeds the focus to the “handsome star of television and movies.”

“I always knew he was a lead in the show,” Harington says when informed of Cogman’s comments. But, as the oft-cited quote goes, “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die,” and Martin — who is currently penning the sixth of the seven planned Song novels — has yet to seal Snow’s fate.

“I don’t want to know if Jon lives or dies. I want it to be a surprise,” Harington claims. If he were to perish, though, the actor wishes Snow “a good death. Something epic. Taking out a dragon maybe.”

And what would Harington do in such a scenario? “I’d go somewhere warm with less beards.”